Friday, September 13, 2013

Splash! @ Yas Waterworld, Abu Dhabi

the water-freak boys with the water-phobic mom visit a water park again. (I’m just so glad that I didn’t go on the terrifying gravity-defying raft ride this time. brrr!)

it was a few weekends after we got back from malaysia. the weather was fantastic – nice and sunny yet not scorching hot. slightly windy, and cooler towards the end of the day. perfect day to be out splashing at a waterpark.

we got a room at rotana yas island for the weekend; overlooking the yas marina circuit. wonderful comfy room with awesome view – and just a few minutes away from ‘yas waterworld’.

now this water park is beautiful.

I mean, look at this entrance. this is where the gift shop is, also some stalls that sell snacks, drinks and ice-cream. they’ve got this awesome arabic souq thing going on, and aladdin-feel to it too. gorgeous interior. loved it! kind off like madinat jumeirah or souq al bahar.

this is the place to shower before you jump into the pool. so cute! loved the design! yang ni pulak reminds me of something out of bedrock town from the flintstones!

the ‘sneaker keeper’. to keep your flip flops and selipar jepun. my boys just went barefooted everywhere, so we dumped their slippers at the back of the stroller instead of leaving them at every slide.

personal floats or any sort of flotation device for the kids is not allowed inside yas waterworld. why? because they provide their own and it’s available at every pool and rides. just take one when you need, and return it when you’re done.

loved the design of these shades. quite similar to the shades at al-ain zoo. basically this is what the walkways look like everywhere around yas waterworld.

‘thirsty? drinking water here’.

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the colorful tubes are for ‘serpent spin’, ‘slither alley’, ‘snake’s tail’, – the usual fare; go on a tube, slide down, splash in the pool.

mr. khairul enquiring height limitation to go on the rides and slides. unfortunately, almost all of them has height requirement; so kahfi and kazim were not able to join in – for example the raft ride. we did that in umm al-quwain’s aquapark but here we couldn’t. mr. khairul was quite disappointed as he wanted to do that together as a family in one raft. I was secretly SO RELIEVED! haha. I hate the raft ride! huhu. scary! mr. khairul ended up going on that raft ride with khaleef only.

from below, you can see the longest slide in yas waterworld, somehow interspersed with the track of the rollercoaster ride. compared to umm al-quwain’s aquapark, yas waterworld in more compact because it’s smaller than aquapark.

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JEBEL DROP

khaleef waiting in line to go down ‘jebel drop’.

speaking of the longest slide in yas waterworld, here is my eldest boy khaleef, waiting in line, to go down THAT. yeap. this insanely high slide is called ‘jebel drop’. yes, that’s what a mom needs to know – a slide called JEBEL that literally means ‘mountain’ or ‘hill’.

I freaked out just by looking at this picture. I can’t imagine my baby khaleef goin down THAT, TWICE! here’s what happened – he came back excited, and told me he’s goin down the long slide. and I actually said NO just go down the normal slide – and he replied, “mak, I’m going for a second time already!” *faint*!

one of the rides in yas waterworld. the ‘bandit bomber’ lets you ‘hang on the middle east’s longest suspended rollercoaster for 550 metres!’. notice the bull’s eye on top of the ride? ‘cannon point’ is another activity in yas waterworld situated on the path of the ‘bandit bombers’, and they’re equipped with water cannons shooting at the people above!

LIWA LOOP

this is the first looping waterslide of its kind in the middle east. instead of going straight down like other normal, non-insane slides, this one goes in a loop. and that’s the reason why it has a weight requirement – coz if you’re too light you’d probably can’t loop yourself down the slide. scary!

mr. khairul took our water-proof camera on the slide and took this video of himself going down ‘liwa loop’. it was scary to think of being there in such tight space, hurtling like crazy, and water all around you! but watching the video just makes me laugh out loud. haha. it’s not me in there. haha. *laughs nervously*.

DAWWAMA

khaleef joined his dad on this insane raft ride, inside a 20-ft high funnel. mr. khairul said the family raft ride at umm al-quwain’s dreamland aqua park is like a relaxing walk in pasar malam compared to this! so exhilarating, and he said that at one point, he was literally flying off his seat on the raft, because they were turning around so high up!

these are stills from the video mr. khairul took while they were up there on the raft.

how high were they from the ground? look at that view!

MARAH FORTRESS

since most of the rides have height limit, I took the boys kahfi and kazim to the ‘kids’ pool’ – and it’s the most awesome pool I’ve ever been to! haha. (I don’t go out too often). it has that usual bucket thingy (water fills up in the bucket, it splashes down, come back up to be filled again) but there are TWO, and man, the whole thing is just HUGE.

the bucket’s gonna trip! *splash!*

there are multiple straightforward slides for the ‘babies’ – and then there are 3 long, winding slides. the awesome thing about these long, winding slides is that they’re wide enough to fit a grown, hairy, big-sized daddy! haha.

it’s a great design to make the slides wide as I can see a lot of mommies and daddies holding on their babies and toddlers and went down the slides together. me too! wee~ I had SO much fun sliding down with kahfi and kazim. we were laughing and screaming all the way down. loved it!

mr. khairul said it’s so sad that THAT makes me so happy in a park full of other amazing slides. haha.

weeee~! that’s kahfi!

most of that day I just spent sliding down these awesome slide, and once or twice I sat back on the reclining pool seats on the side and just chill. the boys would just go crazy running and splashing around occasionally coming back to where I was to have a drink; khaleef joined his dad on other rides and my lazy beach chair would be our meeting point.

it was a fantastic day.

my kecut, kedut, kering khaleef, kahfi and kazim!

to me :

abu dhabi’s yas waterworld is a beautifully designed water park, has the coolest kids’ water playground with wide slides, and exciting scary slides and rides BUT the height limit is so strict that kahfi and kazim cannot join in on most of the slides and rides.

umm al quwain’s dreamland aqua park’s ride is less exciting than the ones in yas waterworld BUT the whole family were able to do most of the rides.

your pick!

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how ironic that we’ve tried the waterparks in other emirates – abu dhabi and umm al-quwain, but we haven’t tried dubai’s own ‘wild wadi’, and ‘the atlantis’ in palm jumeirah which is like minutes away from our place!

oh, and FACT : I’ve never even been to selangor water park ‘sunway lagoon’. and even ‘tambun lost world’ water park which is like few minutes away from my abah’s house. for real.